


Shot Down

by blackroseteal



Category: Top Gun (1986)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-07 02:43:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19075861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackroseteal/pseuds/blackroseteal
Summary: Maverick loses Goose, and therefore himself.  Can Iceman save him?





	Shot Down

**Author's Note:**

> This fandom needs to grow so I won’t be forced to write help start the revolution ppl   
> Maverick/Iceman is coming up in next ch Enjoy!  
> (also Top gun 2 is coming holy shit! one more year)

There’s a moment when Maverick’s in the sky, in that space between the universe and the earth below, when he’s truly happy. Anxious, yes. Frustrated, also yes. Riding the high of the chase and the adrenaline pumping through his veins. Then it ends, suddenly and inexplicably. Ice pulls up off the target, and they fly right through a vacuum made of powerful air currents.

“Shit, we just flew right through a jet wash!” Goose exclaims. His voice is high but not quite panicked, his mind preoccupied with searching for a solution, a quick fix to this momentary mishap, and a return to the exciting but ultimately G rated program of flight school training. Top gun is a school, an institute of learning and enhancing skills, not active duty, not death.

Maverick struggles for control of the jet, but he can already feel it slipping out of his fingers, sees the transformation of this vessel to freedom into an awkward metal death trap. Lights flash and both Goose and the control console warn him that engine one is out, then engine two. It takes a second for the forward momentum, for the flying to end, and the fall to begin as gravity overtakes them. The sky blurs with the speckles of white clouds as the jet goes into a flat spin, and Maverick knows it’s over, that there’s zero chance of regaining control now. 

He spares a thought to think of the millions of dollars of wasted taxpayer money before reaching up to pull the ejection handle and end it- only, he can’t reach. The G force is overwhelming, like some imaginary, enormous force is holding down his arms. Their elevation drops from five thousand to four thousand feet and Goose is yelling and ice shoots through Maverick’s veins because he can’t reach and maybe this is how it ends. Then the canopy above releases so that Maverick can hear the whistling of the wind and he’s launched into the air faster than he can process. 

His parachute releases before he can fall more than a few feet, but when he looks down, that’s the moment, that is the instant that he truly realizes that it’s over, because below him there is Goose, loose limbed and hanging limp by his parachutes before the waves embrace him into their depths.

And the knowing, the realization that your best friend is dead, and getting to watch him fall down from above, already in the clutches of death, Maverick wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

***  
Viper meets him in the showers, where he’s leaning against the sink like he can’t support his weight anymore. Maybe he can’t. He certainly doesn’t want to. Viper talks about losing some of his own people, and about learning to let go, to fly again. He pats him on the back as he leaves, and Maverick is stuck staring at his reflection in the mirror, at the black hair and blue eyes of this monster staring back at him, feeling like he’s still rocking in the warm waves of the Pacific ocean.

It’s not the same. How could it be? How could he expect himself to ignore and forget? How could Viper? 

Maverick is- was - dangerous because he flew like he had something to lose, something to come back to, something that made it worth it, to chase the thrill and test his limits in the sky, so that he could reminisce about them after with the people in his life that matter. He doesn’t feel dangerous anymore. Volatile, yes. Explosive, also yes. But now that an essential part of him has been shot out of his chest, he’s losing what separates Maverick from Pete Mitchell.


End file.
